Special Needs Parenting and Bullying

*Phone Rings*……………………… that moment we all hate when we read the screen “School” calling.

Although I knew my boy was physically ok as he had arrived home just five minutes earlier, he had told me his day was fine.

- Hello?

- Hi Mrs Kaye it’s the pastoral manager from School, I just wanted to check that Cameron is ok as there was an incident today?

- Well he’s home and not said anything?

- Ok that’s fine – its just that he was verbally abused today; it wasn’t very nice to witness, and I just wanted to check in.  The other child has been suspended and we are dealing with this separately.

I waited until my husband got home so we could address the issue; but when we confronted Cameron, he said he didn’t remember, and he was fine.  He hadn’t told me as he didn’t want me to worry.

Now this is a stark contrast to a couple of issues in primary school, when he couldn’t wait to tell you who had done him wrong and the ins and outs of events.

It worried me that high school now is a totally different ball game, he doesn’t want me causing a fuss.

Through the power of Facebook I managed to get in touch with the boys mum, we had a conversation and we agreed to get the boys to meet to see what was the issue and try to defuse this at the beginning so that it did not escalate and get out of hand.

We took the lad a Dairy Milk peace offering, chocolate is a great healer after all and he apologised. He now talks to Cameron when he sees him in school.

The following week I noticed a bruise on Cameron’s arm and asked him how it had happened; he told me that someone was messing around and pushed him, that he had fallen into a bench.

My heart broke again, I asked him who it was, and he said that he wasn’t going to tell me because he doesn’t want me doing anything and making him meet this person like I did in the other instance.

I realised in that moment that I need to back off, as painful and hard as that is – I need to let him grow and I need to do this so that he will trust to tell me and share things with me.

I have promised that I will not take action unless he is severely hurt, that he needs to understand this is not ok, but I respect what he is asking me.

These teenage years will be hard and different, I have two brothers and know they were always getting into scrapes and saw them around school messing and having “banter” with other lads.

Cameron is a timid lad, he carries himself in a shy manor and he is open and someone confident about his autism.

A friend of mine attends Krav Maga training and told me there was a teen session at weekends.

Krav Maga is a self defence system which focuses on defusing real life situations; I booked a session and explained to Cameron that I think it would be beneficial as well as good exercise and a chance to make some new friends.

He loved it, and as a kid that’s not overly keen on expressing enthusiasm he was positive and excited:

“They taught us what to do if someone tries to steal your mobile phone and also what to do if someone pushes you”

I can’t fix everything – he needs to learn the way of the world we live in; I understand that, but I can certainly try my best as his mother to give him the skills and knowledge in life to try and help him succeed and be confident.